The Need to Reconcile Environmental Demands with the Increase in
Travellers
A Possible Solution?
Increasing Efficiency and Saving Energy
A Multitude of Applications
Project D-DALUS – Technology of the Future – Now!

UAS Research Trends Upward

6

Mary Dub, Editor

The Consequences of Rising Global Demand for UAVs
The Changing Threat New UAS Systems Will Have to Meet

Areas for Development of UAVs
Capability Wish List
UAVs and Chemical and Biological Weapon Detection

The Impact of New Research in UAS in Action

For further information visit:
www.globalbusinessmedia.org

Mary Dub, Editor

The opinions and views expressed in the
editorial content in this publication are those
of the authors alone and do not necessarily
represent the views of any organisation with
which they may be associated.

speed with which unmanned aerial vehicles or drones
have transformed classic thinking about air dominance
and how it can be achieved. Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more, the rapid
speed and penetration of new developments in
popular commercial computing like smart phones

Mary Dub
Editor

Mary Dub has covered the defence field in the United States and the UK as a television
broadcaster, journalist and conference manager.

istorians will view our current era
as the moment when mankind entered
cyber-space, removing a large proportion of
the commerce, entertainment, sport and social
interaction that had hitherto been exclusively
conducted in the real world. For some, this
venture may herald the end of man‘s conflict
with the environment – the soldier will battle
with avatars, the graffiti artist will decorate
virtual walls, and the tourist will enter virtual
resorts without a trace of a carbon footprint .
However, despite man’s increasing presence in
this ‘other world’, there is little evidence that the
pace and density of activity in the real world is
diminishing – on the contrary, it is intensifying.

Three Times as Many Travellers
The European Transport 2050 report predicts
that in 2050 there will be almost 3 times as many
travellers in the air than in 2011. If so, with our
reliance on wide bodied fixed wing super liners,
will there be 3 times as many airports with 3 times
the amount of cars delivering and collecting
passengers? And 3 times the amount of carbon
emissions? Will taxpayers be able to afford, for
example, 3 new Berlin Airports and 3 times the
road transport infrastructure costs?
If fixed-wing aircraft cannot solve this problem,
neither can helicopters. Already at the limit of the
‘Change Curve’, the helicopter is truly Baroque.
A tiny percentage increase in range, payload, top
speed or altitude can almost double the cost of
an airframe. Although they offer the attraction of
VTOL, their safety record is poor, their speed and
range are primitive and their maintenance costs
are legendary.
If mankind is not about to become a fancy
series of algorithms defined in cyberspace, then
a transport solution must rapidly be sought to
provide low cost vertical launch platforms, using
green power sources, and offering high speed
safe travel.

Advance of the UAV
Simultaneously, our airspace is on the brink
of invasion. Autonomous vehicles, currently
exclusive to military operations or confined

by size and weight to conform to sport aircraft
classification, are soon to be permitted in ‘hybrid
airspace’ – UAVs flying together with piloted
vehicles. These UAVs will form swarms, each
swarm sharing a route between designated way
points where they re-form to allow each UAV to
select the next swarm with flight vectors most
closely fitting their desired journey. Air traffic
controllers will define the way points and set the
swarm vectors (altitude, direction and speed).
Individual UAVs will sense their proximity to a
forming swarm and recognise the pattern to
which they must contribute.
These UAVs will break out from the constraints
of their current roles as sensor or weapons
platforms, and become the tools that allow
mankind to fully enter, control and inhabit the
third dimension of this planet. The defining line
between passenger aircraft and UAV will fade and
‘hybrid airspace’ will give way to total autonomy.
These disruptive changes will be driven by four
inevitable factors: demographics, economics,
safety and the environment. Population
expansion, constrained by the exponential rise
in infrastructure costs, will force mankind to
recognise that, by rising from the ground, life can
be lived more economically, more safely and with
least harm to the environment.
We think nothing of driving our car at 120kph
towards an oncoming lorry travelling at a similar
speed and passing each other with little more
than the separation of the wing mirrors. A
collision is prevented by the mutual action of
two drivers, each trusting firmly that the other
has sufficient skill and experience to judge the
separation and is not distracted by alcohol, a
mobile phone, exhaustion or their passenger. In
the air, currently safety is achieved by separating
aircraft with similar vectors; the further apart the
controller sets their course the safer they become.
But the density of future air travel will demand
either massive crafts carrying a thousand or
more passengers, or tighter density traffic control.
UAVs however will derive greatest safety when
they swarm (closely pack) and can recognise the
pattern to which they belong. These aircraft will
therefore allow far greater air traffic densities. But
www.defenceindustryreports.com | 3

SPECIAL REPORT: NEXT GENERATION ALTERNATIVE ENERGY UAV TECHNOLOGY

The addition of a winged
chassis allows the craft,
once airborne, to fly
forward at almost twice
the speed
of conventional
helicopters and with far
greater efficiency

Fig.1. The D-DALUS UAV showing the 4 cyclogyro rotor assemblies

fixed wing aircraft cannot swarm with sufficient
stability, changing their speed and attitude in an
impulse in order to reform patterns on the arrival
or departure of a member of the swarm. And
conventional rotorcraft (helicopters) are similarly
constrained by their slow impulse response and
additionally cannot fly close without the danger
of rotor strike. Neither fixed wing nor helicopters
can be easily rescued from catastrophic engine
failure by deploying parachutes. Future UAVs
must therefore escape the constraints of fixed
wing and conventional rotorcraft.

The Need to Reconcile
Environmental Demands
with the Increase in Travellers
Current air traffic is blamed for a very large
proportion of the global carbon damage. It seems
impossible to reconcile environmental demands
to reduce the current levels of pollution yet, at the
same time, allow for a dramatic increase in the
number of air travellers …..unless an air vehicle
can be found that uses green energy such as
algae sourced fuels or electricity sourced from
natural power (wind, solar or hydro). Current
attempts at solar powered craft hit the headlines
but do not appear to offer economic large
payload high speed travel.

A Possible Solution?
So when we consider the future, it is simple to
forecast the demographic, environmental, safety
and economic demands that we will face, far less
easy to define the essentially new and disruptive
technology that will meet these demands. But
IAT21, an Austrian research company based
near Linz, may have discovered the solution.
World-wide excitement has been generated
over their cyclogyro project – Project D-DALUS
– a rotorcraft that, weighing around 20kg left the
4 | www.defenceindustryreports.com

ground for the first time in 2006 and in 2012, as
a larger model weighing approximately 200kg, in
front of film crews from The Discovery Channel
and Servus TV.
The D-DALUS craft propulsion system uses
two pairs of contra-rotating rotors, similar in
design to the paddles of a paddle-steamer or
water-mill except that the angle of the blades
can be altered to change the direction of thrust.
Each of the four rotor assemblies can be given
different commands so that, for example, the two
on the port side can thrust down and the two
starboard rotor assemblies can thrust upwards,
causing the craft to flip. Or, imagining the craft in
compass terms, the North-East assembly could
thrust East and the South West assembly thrust
West and the craft would rotate like a Catherinewheel. Or all four could thrust down and the craft
would take off vertically. For a craft capable of
100kg payloads the rotor assemblies run at over
2,000 rpm generating forces of 1,000 g at the
circumference but, thanks to the IAT21 patented
ultra-low friction bearing, the pitch of the blades
can be altered in a microsecond, allowing the
UAV extraordinary manoeuvrability. So the project
offers the prospect of a craft that can swarm and
rapidly match its attitude to fit changing swarm
patterns; it can take off vertically (therefore
not requiring a runway) and has no extended
moving parts that can foul against objects such
as adjacent aircraft , trees, walls or power lines.
The addition of a winged chassis allows the craft,
once airborne, to fly forward at almost twice the
speed of conventional helicopters and with far
greater efficiency.

Increasing Efficiency
and Saving Energy
But does Project D-DALUS solve the
environmentalist’s concerns? IAT21 have been

SPECIAL REPORT: NEXT GENERATION ALTERNATIVE ENERGY UAV TECHNOLOGY

Fig.2. D-DALUS is designed to be able to fly higher, faster and for longer than helicopters but will
also be capable of operations inside buildings

working on an electrically powered UAV and have
successfully demonstrated the feasibility that such
an aircraft could soon be a commercial reality.
Their ultra-low friction bearing and on-board
regenerative energy storage reduce energy
consumption. In addition, in a consortium with
other European partners in Portugal, Germany,
Italy and the UK, IAT21 are examining other
revolutionary ways to increase the efficiency
of electrically powered craft; for example, by
an electrically generated plasma boundary
layer that influences the air flow across the rotor
blades using a Plasma Enhanced Cycloidal
Thruster PECyT.

Fig.3 IAT21’s concept for a future D-DALUS
passenger aircraft

A Multitude of Applications
Through the D-DALUS technology, IAT21 is
developing a next generation alternative energy
UAV but clearly the inventors recognise that
UAV and passenger aircraft innovation will soon
merge and that this technology has the potential,
eventually, to allow mankind to leave the ground
and live and work in air-space as naturally as
we have hitherto lived on the ground. Local
autonomous air taxis will fly direct door-to-door,
freed from seeking urban rat-runs. Swarms will
shuttle to and from massive intercontinental
mother-ships that rarely land. New motor
sports will harness the speed and manoeuvring
ability of this ‘aerial quad-bike’. CCTV that currently
provides sparse but invaluable ground level
safety coverage can now be comprehensive,
allowing security coverage for vulnerable
populations (such as refugees or late night
pedestrians), monitoring of contamination
(such as chemical or radioactive waste), crowd
control (identification of violent elements at

football matches etc), homeland security (for
example, recognising unattended packages) and
recognising hazards such as the signs of forest
fires, an avalanche about to start or rocks on high
speed rail tracks. Imagine window shopping up
the outside of a 50 storey apartment store, or
saving fuel by travelling in the slipstream of a
high speed train.

Project D-DALUS –
Technology of the Future – Now!
Next Generation UAVs must use alternative
energy sources and they must be green. They
will pervade almost every aspect of our lives,
providing us with greater security, faster and
more economic communications, and they will
eventually free us from the attrition and stress
of ground infrastructure. These UAVs await a
disruptive technology that escapes the constraints
of fixed wing and rotor craft. That technology may
have arrived in the form of Project D-DALUS.

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SPECIAL REPORT: NEXT GENERATION ALTERNATIVE ENERGY UAV TECHNOLOGY

UAS Research
Trends Upward
Mary Dub, Editor

“As UAVs prove their indisputable worth saving lives every day in current
operations, they are also challenging traditional air power concepts and
stimulating necessary debate on how air power might best be delivered
in the future.” Air Vice-Marshal Jon Lamonte, Chief of Staff Strategy,
Policy & Plans UK (2012)

The United States
GAO notes that the
number of countries
that have acquired a
UAV has increased from
approximately 41 in
2004 to at least
76 countries in 2012

I

n the past decade UAVs have progressed
from minor players in Intelligence and
Situational Awareness, or ISA role to a key
part of the allied air campaigns over Iraq
and Afghanistan, with single platforms now
capable of achieving the entire Find, Fix, Track,
Target, Engage and Assess kill chain. Their
development from providing a surveillance
capability to a system providing armed ISA,
follows a similar path to the evolution of
manned aviation over the trenches of World
War 1, where aircraft operating over enemy
lines providing artillery observation soon
began carrying rudimentary bombs to attack
positions directly.
Early indications are that the parallels between
the development of manned and unmanned
aircraft will not end there; that the capabilities of
UAVs will continue to develop and increasingly
play a part in all air power roles.1 This apposite
summary of the central place UAVs have won for
themselves in today’s NATO or ISAF battlefield
by a distinguished commander is replicated in
defence armouries throughout the world. In a
report this year for the British House of Commons,
it is clear that this upward trend in the use of UAS
systems is global. The United States GAO2 notes
that the number of countries that have acquired
a UAV has increased from approximately 41 in
2004 to at least 76 countries in 2012.
It suggests that over 50 countries are developing
more than 900 different UAV systems. The British
MOD assesses that there are approximately 80
states whose armed forces have an unmanned
air vehicle capability. Of these, less than a dozen
operate systems that can be armed with missiles
or other munitions. The majority are considered
tactical UAVs, which are primarily used for
intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance
missions and have a limited operational range.3
The US GAO study observes that, while only a
limited number of countries have fielded lethal
or weaponised UAVs “the threat is anticipated
to grow”.

6 | www.defenceindustryreports.com

The Consequences of Rising
Global Demand for UAVs
The consequences of the widespread use
and interest in the whole spectrum of UAS
systems from the micro/nano UAS to the larger
weaponised drones has been a vigorous growth
in the research and development 4 of UAS
systems. This new research addresses their
weaknesses and transfers from the commercial
sector new technologies, which lower the weight
of systems and improve guidance engineering
and algorithms. DARPA, under the leadership
of their new director, Arati Prabhakar, explained
the priority being given to the development of
UAS systems in 2013 in her annual statement.
She sees the mission of DARPA to continue the
fight against tactical technological surprise that
gives advantage in the battlefield. Historically,
DARPA was founded to confront the need for
technological surprise created by the launch
of Sputnik in 1958. Since that time, DARPA
has been at the leading edge of funding and
developing often highly classified technologies
that may give the United States critical leverage
on the battlefield.

The Changing Threat New UAS
Systems Will Have to Meet
In her presentation, Arati Prabhakar outlines her
agency’s current threat perception that needs
to be met by technological development. The
relevance of this is that many of these disparate
threats are ones that can be met by new
developments in UAS and robotics. ‘The first
major factor is, we believe we’re going to be in
an extended period during which our national
security will face a wide range of different types
of threats from a wide range of different actors-nation-states are in the mix, but so too are terrorist
organizations and criminal organizations and
even individuals. And each of these -- all of these
different kinds of actors have the conventional
means of waging war, or inflicting damage; but
now they also have some new tools. Cyber is

SPECIAL REPORT: NEXT GENERATION ALTERNATIVE ENERGY UAV TECHNOLOGY

IAT21’s vision for a future autonomous passenger craft as the ultimate goal of their current
UAV programme

a very obvious example. Many of these actors
also have increasing access to weapons of
mass destructions, or weapons of mass terror.
So the number one major factor that we really
pay attention to is this complex, fluid, shifting
national security environment that we think we
will be facing for an extended period of time.’5

The Changing Technology
Threat Perception from DARPA
Secondly, she addresses the changing nature
of the technology market and the vigorous role
the commercial market plays in distributing
computer technologies that were once the
privileged preserve of the military. ‘The world
has changed in some important ways, and
already today our military systems are critically
reliant on technologies that in some cases are
available to everybody around the world, in some
cases are actually not even made anymore in
the United States. That’s a trend that we expect
will continue and in particular we think that other
nations will continue to grow their capabilities
in terms of technology and new research and
development. I think that’s going to be a fact of life
in the world that we’re living in.’6 Finally, she notes
a paradigm shift that is more fundamental than
the current issue of sequestration. In DARPA’s
view, the United States may be at the beginning
of a fundamental shift in how society allocates
resources to the business of national security.7

The world has changed in
some important ways, and
already today our military
systems are critically
reliant on technologies
that in some cases are
available to everybody
around the world

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SPECIAL REPORT: NEXT GENERATION ALTERNATIVE ENERGY UAV TECHNOLOGY

The Future for
Robotics is Now
Don McBarnet, Staff Writer

“So out of those conversations came the notion of taking a look at air
dominance and asking the question about how we could create this
generational shift and how we could extend our air superiority capability.”
Arati Prabhakar, Director DARPA (April 24, 2013)

Many would like an
autonomous vehicle that
can fly in any weather
through smoke and
radiation, hover very
close to cliff faces or
IAT21’s Desert Rat UAV is planned to provide support for UNHCR and NGO Operations

buildings and even
enter them to recover
casualties or collect
or deliver materials in
hazardous situations

I

t is this new research into extending and
establishing air superiority capability using
manned and unmanned systems that is at the
heart of the current DARPA program - one of
the best funded research and development
programs in the world, despite the current
fiscal constraints. What are the areas that
DARPA and other governments working on
UAS development like the UK, Israel and
other European and African countries see as
important weaknesses of current UAS? The
House of Commons Library briefing document
on drones gives a list of current perceived
limitations in capabilities seen by the British
Ministry of Defence, and the list is a long one.
They identify a lack of small, tailored weapons
and of long air carriage life weapons. They see
current UAS systems communications links
with the ground as vulnerable to cyber and
communications link attack. Commanders
are troubled by the lack of ruggedness and
airworthiness of many UAS models, as many of
the technologies remain immature. The military
have other specific requirements: many would

8 | www.defenceindustryreports.com

like an autonomous vehicle that can fly in any
weather through smoke and radiation, hover
very close to cliff faces or buildings and even
enter them to recover casualties or collect or
deliver materials in hazardous situations.

Areas for Development of UAVs
Air Vice-Marshal Jon Lamonte, in his lecture to
the Royal United Services Institute in London,
outlined further weaknesses in UAVs that he
thought needed development. In his view air
power strengths are speed, reach, height,
ubiquity, agility and concentration. These
are attributes that can be exploited by UAVs
in a similar way to manned aircraft. Equally
important, however, are the current weaknesses
of air power. These are impermanence because
aircraft cannot stay airborne indefinitely; limited
payload when compared with a ship or land
vehicle; fragility of structure making them
susceptible to battle damage; cost in procuring
and sustaining aircraft capabilities and reliance
on cutting edge technology in order to defeat
the equally technologically advanced counter air

SPECIAL REPORT: NEXT GENERATION ALTERNATIVE ENERGY UAV TECHNOLOGY

capabilities of opponents. And finally he notes
how area basing is required to operate from within
a practical range of the theatre of operations.8
He goes on to develop the important issue of
payload. In Lamonte’s opinion, the current
weakness of UAVs is that they have a lower
carrying capacity than their endurance capability.
Payload limitations are generally described in
terms of weight, size and number of expendables,
such as weapons, that can be carried. Once the
payload has been accommodated on board,
non-kinetic capabilities such as collection
and distribution of digital imagery, signals
intelligence and communications relay are
only limited by the system’s capability and
platform performance. It is the weapon carriage
limitation that has the greatest impact on UAVs
performing in the attack role as they can expend
all their weapons long before they are required
to come off task. With the development of
directed energy weaponry becoming an ever
more likely reality, however, the combination of
a weapon with an ‘inexhaustible magazine’
coupled with the persistence of UAVs that
are survivable in a contested battle space, is
expected to transform war fighting by around
2030. Thereafter, UAVs are likely to begin to
predominate in the force mix and the traditional
air power roles of Intelligence and Situational
Awareness and Attack will merge as the same
system becomes capable of delivering both
roles simultaneously.9

Capability Wish List
While the prospect of a UAV armed with an
inexhaustible magazine of directed energy
weapons is still some way off, there are more
immediately achievable aims in his wish list of
capabilities for future UAVs. In Lamonte’s view,
the fragility of UAVs is a problem relative to
manned aircraft. However, he is confident that
this can be accommodated: industry will aim
to mitigate these weakness, not only through

improved performance in terms of height,
speed and manoeuvrability, but also by
increasing levels of automation, equipping
platforms with defensive aids, protecting up and
down links, and incorporating low observable
technology and characteristics that are not
compromised by the platform design limitations
imposed by the life support and needs of
carrying a human being.

UAVs and Chemical and
Biological Weapon Detection
Above and beyond the role UAVs currently
have to carry sensors and deliver real time
information to the ground as images, is the role
that they may in the future be able to play in
accomplishing what are called “dirty” missions.
Here they have a unique advantage over manned
systems in that the life of a pilot is not risked in
acquiring data. In addition to the basic ISR
role, micro and small low cost UAVs could be
used extensively as airborne NBC10 detectors
accomplishing the “dirty” missions for U.S. military
and homeland defense forces. Recent advances
in miniaturization and nanotechnology have
significantly reduced the size of NBC detectors.
For example, “Argonne [under US Department
of Defence contract] has developed a miniature
‘microelectronic nose’ that detects chemical
poisons such as cyanogen chloride and hydrogen
cyanide gases at nonlethal concentrations. It is
being trained to detect VX, sarin, and mustard
gases as well. The prototype instrument fits in
the palm of a hand.” Laboratories-on-a-chip are
just the latest inventions that will soon find their
way into micro and small UAVs for use in military
applications. Integrated within a MAV11, such
as the Army’s Black Widow, these sensors will
provide soldiers or air base defenders with a fast
and economical means of identifying hazards.
“MAVs will be able to map the size and shape of
hazardous clouds and provide real time tracking
of their location.”12
www.defenceindustryreports.com | 9

While up to now most
UAVs have been
used individually, new
technologies and
thinking have initiated the
idea of a swarm of UAVs
to enhance effectiveness

U

AVs of all sizes and descriptions are
currently being used in Afghanistan and
elsewhere. The revolution that is taking place
on miniaturisation and ruggedness is already
in play. The British Ministry of Defence report
in Spring 2013 states that frontline troops
are being protected by a Black Hornet nano
UAV. The Black Hornet nano UAV measures
around 4 inches by 1 inch (10cm x 2.5cm) and
provides troops on the ground with situational
awareness.13 The Black Hornet is equipped
with a tiny camera, which gives troops reliable
full-motion video and still images. Soldiers are
using it to peer around corners or over walls
and other obstacles to identify any hidden
dangers and the images are displayed on a
handheld terminal. The Black Hornet weighs
as little as 16 grams and has been developed
by Prox Dynamics AS of Norway as part
of a £20 million contract for 160 units with
Marlborough Communications Ltd in Surrey.
Sergeant Christopher Petherbridge of the
Brigade Reconnaissance Force in Afghanistan
said: “Black Hornet is definitely adding value,
especially considering the lightweight nature
of it. We use it to look for insurgent firing points
and check out exposed areas of the ground
before crossing, which is a real asset. It is very
easy to operate and offers amazing capability
to the guys on the ground.” Its real value is that
it is light and portable for dismounted soldiers
on patrol.

UAVs in action in
Swarm-Like Networks
While up to now most UAVs have been used
individually, new technologies and thinking
have initiated the idea of a swarm of UAVs to
enhance effectiveness. How would this work?
The U. S. Navy’s Smart Warfighting Array of
Reconfigurable Modules (SWARM) operates
as a group, functioning together as a ‘swarm’

10 | www.defenceindustryreports.com

of aircraft. This operational model requires the
vehicles to function as individual units while
being a part of a larger functioning organization
operating to achieve a common mission goal. The
UAVs communicate relevant information and can
reconfigure themselves, autonomously changing
direction in response to sensor input to achieve
the mission at hand. For example, if you have
100 aircraft collecting sensor input over a field of
operation and five of them have engine failure or
are shot out of the sky, the rest can reconfigure
themselves to collect the required data and
complete the mission.14

DARPA Development
of the Sea Launched Drone
A key limitation of UAV use in conflict has been
the need for transport to forward basing. The
next generation of UAVs will be able to launch
at sea and return home to their launch vessels.
The new Tactically Exploited Reconnaissance
Node program, or Tern, “envisions using smaller
ships as mobile launch and recovery sites for
medium-altitude long-endurance fixed-wing
unmanned aircraft,” DARPA announced. The
program works for unarmed spy drones on
reconnaissance as well as those armed for
“strike” missions. Tern complements one of the
Navy’s main robotic development developments.
The Navy would like a drone, equipped with
missiles and advanced spy equipment, to take
off and land from a full-sized aircraft carrier, one
of the hardest maneuvers in aviation. It’s currently
experimenting with a 62.1-foot span, batwingshaped prototype, called the X-47B, which the
Navy expects to launch off a carrier deck at sea
for the first time by May 2013.15

DARPA Specifications
for New UAVS
Of course, much of DARPA’s work is classified,
but insight into what their program teams are

SPECIAL REPORT: NEXT GENERATION ALTERNATIVE ENERGY UAV TECHNOLOGY

working on can be gleaned from the detailed
constraints and specifications attached to many
of the requests for tenders or expressions of
interest from researchers. For dismounted
soldiers on patrol, it is always necessary to
ensure that equipment that needs to be carried
is light and that it delivers the promised benefit.
DARPA asks researchers or proponents of
new technologies to ensure all hardware,
power and processing capabilities are integrated
into equipment that squad members and
the squad’s complement of ground and air
unmanned systems can carry. That means
that they minimize system size, weight and
power (SWaP), and inherently enable real-time
action by squads. “Imagine a squad moving
through a complex urban environment that has
heavy threat activity,” said Army Lt. Col. Joseph
Hitt, DARPA program manager. “We’re looking
to leverage emerging technologies, integrate
and optimize them through rigorous
experimentation, and deliver the decisive
technological advantage dismounted squads
deserve,” Hitt said. “We’re reaching out to
the performer community to see what gamechanging technologies they could contribute.”16

For dismounted soldiers
on patrol, it is always
necessary to ensure that
equipment that needs to
be carried is light and
that it delivers the
promised benefit

Energy Demands for UAVs
Undoubtedly, one of the most challenging
areas for new technology development for
UAVs is energy resource sustainability. The
ideal solution would be a long endurance,
non-carbon emitting, renewable energy power
source. There are numerous different options
– photo voltaic cells, lithium polymer (Li-Po)
batteries, hybrid solutions or hydrogen fuel
cell sources. Many of these solutions have
critical weaknesses in terms of ruggedness,
when subject to extreme weather conditions,
and endurance. Many UAV manufacturers
vigorously seek an ingenious solution to
this problem.

Austrian firm
Innovative Aerodynamic
Technologies (IAT21)
describes its free-floating
drone Project D-Dalus
as, “a totally new form of
airborne auto-motion”, as
it hovers and flies without
wings or rotors

The D-DALUS cyclogyro UAV

W

hat does the future look like for new
technologies for unmanned aerial
vehicles? The demand for change from critical
drivers like affordability is apparent. What does
this mean in practice? Many manufacturers are
working on highly classified new technologies
to meet the perceived weaknesses of their
current product range. Israel, which have
been at the forefront of product and technology
development for UAS, has been quick off
the mark. Their tiny butterfly-like unmanned
micro vehicle is a case in point. When the
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) “butterfly”
unmanned air vehicle, or rather super micro
vehicle, takes off in one of the company’s
hangars, it looks like a toy. The “butterfly”
is practically silent and, when it hovers a
few metres above your head, it sometimes
merges with the background and seems
to disappear. This is exactly what IAI wants
to achieve – a miniature UAV that can enter

12 | www.defenceindustryreports.com

buildings and relay video and sound to forces
outside. The idea came from an engineer’s
study of butterfly wings.

A Truly Micro UAV
The small butterfly weighs 8g (0.3oz), and the
“bigger” one 13g, both powered by a lithium
polymer battery weighing 2g with an endurance
of 20min. The tiny battery powers an electric
motor with 7,000rpm that, in the small version,
supplies 17Hz, and 40Hz in the bigger one.
The video camera on both models weighs 0.1g
and supports a ciphered video link. Because of
its small size it has a very practical purpose in
21st century warfare. The IAI team say the
project is mainly aimed at urban warfare, pointing
the butterflies in the direction of helping soldiers
get real-time intelligence in situations that are
currently “dead ends”. Let us imagine a scenario:
terrorists take over a building and hold hostages
in an upper floor. There is no way to see or hear

SPECIAL REPORT: NEXT GENERATION ALTERNATIVE ENERGY UAV TECHNOLOGY

what is going on inside the building. A “butterfly”
takes off, enters the building via a window or air
vent and begins to relay footage to troops outside
via a camera and microphone.

European Energy
Technology Ingenuity
Israel does not hold a monopoly for ingenuity in
designing new UAVs. Austrian firm Innovative
Aerodynamic Technologies (IAT21) describes its
free-floating drone Project D-Dalus as, “a totally
new form of airborne auto-motion”, as it hovers
and flies without wings or rotors.17 Taking their
inspiration from balloons, birds and balls, the
D-Dalus can launch and land vertically, hover
perfectly still and zip about in any direction with
360 degrees of movement. A series of computer
algorithms work to keep the aircraft upright,
while a pilot guides the device using a traditional
joystick. Reinforced by research from Cranfield
University in the United Kingdom and flight
tests and design from Austria, it puts new
research into the market place. The prototype
was launched at the Paris Air Show in 2011
and was picked up by Fox News. They were
particularly interested in the technology which
the D-Dalus vehicle uses – four contra-rotating
turbines for propulsion, each reaching 2,200rpm.
Each turbine blade has a variable angle of
attack, which according to the designer
allows the main thrust to be fired in any direction,
around any axis. This allows the craft to launch
vertically, hover, rotate in any direction and
even thrust upwards, holding itself down.18 The
manufacturers describe the craft as having
several patented inventions, including “a frictionfree bearing at the points of high G force, and
a system that keeps propulsion in dynamic
equilibrium, thereby allowing the guidance system
to quickly restore stability in flight.” The craft is

said to be easily scalable and can be made larger
with more practical capabilities.

Providing a Solution to
Stated DARPA Specifications
D-Dalus, the brand name of the product meets
many of the specifications that the US Army
and DARPA have indicated should be met. For
example, because of its revolutionary air foil
like shape, it can land on bucking platforms like
small boats at sea and because it does not use
rotor blades, like a helicopter, it is considerably
quieter and more fuel efficient. It also offers
unmatched manoeuvrability and an ability to
make contact with vertical obstacles without
damaging its rotor-blades.

The Future of UAVs
The value of UAVs is that they offer a cost sensitive
solution to many of the problems of 21st century
military. Despite the inevitable legal and ethical
problems of their use as unmanned weapons,
they provide a way of approaching future war
fighting where precious human trained manpower
can be kept out of the most life threatening tasks.
If a new disruptive technology provides a way
of keeping soldiers out of harm’s way, it has a
marked value. And as military history reveals,
the advent of new technologies that revolutionise
the battlefield has no respect for short-term
budgetary constraints. In the 19th century, the
Austrian military commanders decided not to
pay for the latest new breech-loading rifle, and
therefore lost in their next confrontation with
the Prussian Army which was using the latest
technology. Sequestration and fiscal constraint
cannot be the only argument for not considering
and developing potentially disruptive new
technologies which, if used by the opposition,
may give them the advantage of surprise.

www.defenceindustryreports.com | 13

SPECIAL REPORT: NEXT GENERATION ALTERNATIVE ENERGY UAV TECHNOLOGY

References:
1

The Future of UAVs: RUSI The Future of UAVs: Concepts and Considerations

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/cst/bugs_ch06.pdf
Small Power: The Role of Micro and Small UAVs in the Future By James M. Abatti, Major, USAF
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/03/darpa-drones-ships/ Pentagon’s Mad Scientists Want to Launch Killer Drones From Small Warships
BY DAVID AXE

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-06/27/d-dalus-drone
D-Dalus drone can fly without wings or rotors AUTOPIA 27 JUNE 11 by MARK BROWN
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/06/23/completely-new-kind-aircraft-propulsion-system-made-rotating-cylinders/
No Jets, No Problem: Completely New Kind of Aircraft Debuts Published June 23, 2011 Popular Science

14 | www.defenceindustryreports.com

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